Alyeska to Fairbanks and back to Seward

July 10th we left Alyeska in the morning via motorcoach for the beautiful, scenic drive to Anchorage. Anchorage is a city of 300,000 - the largest in Alaska. Stopped at a local market/flea market in downtown (held weekly on Saturdays - rain or shine) for lunch. Walked around the market and downtown area for about an hour before again boarding the motorcoach for the

continuation of our journey to Denali. Can't say enough about how beautiful the drive was to Denali. Arrived the evening of the 10th in Denali where we spent two nights at the Grande Denali Lodge.

The afernon of July 12th we departed Denali via the scenic Alaska Railroad to Fairbanks. Great views, excellent dinner. Arrived that evening in Fairbanks where we stayed for two nights at the Pike's Waterfront Lodge. Although we arrived around 9 pm, sunset was not until 12:30 pm so we had a very enjoyable evening.

July 13th we connected with Celebrity cruises at Pike's for our southbound journey.

The morning of July 14th we departed Fairbanks via motorcoach. First we stopped at the El Dorado Gold Mine where we had an opportunity to pan for gold. What an exciting experience that was. Between us we got only about $54 dollars worth of gold - what back breaking, hard work.

We also had an opportunity on our way to lunch in Fairbanks to stop by and see the Alaska pipeline, we couldn't resist this picture of us holding it up :).

As I said we had lunch in Fairbanks which has a population of about 100,000. From Fairbanks we continued back to Denali where we stayed at the McKinley Village Lodge for 2 nights.

The morning of July 16th we boarded the motorcoach for the continuation of our trip back to Seward so that we could board the Celebrity Millenium for our southbound cruise. Stopped again in Anchorage for lunch. This time had an opportunity to spend a couple of hours wandering around.

The drive from Denali to Seward is considered once of the 10 best in North America. Although it rained, it was spectacular. Kenai Mountains on one side, Chugach on the other - both ranges were snowcapped. Alaska has hugh variations in their tides, which occur several times per day. Alaska is twice the size of Texas at high tide but 3 times the size at low tide. The weather cleared the closer we got to Seward.

We boarded the Millenium around 5:30 pm. We departed Seward around 9:00 pm for the Hubbard Glacier.

The various tour guides and drivers we had on the motorcoaches and train are real nomads. They live in Alaska from April/May through September. Some then head back to the "lower 48" (as they refer to us) to work in Colorado at the ski lodges or other various locations. Most of them stop to visit family from wherever they are from. Some of them go abroad to travel, India and Thailand were some of the places they were headed for. As a whole, they all love Alaska and were inspired after their first visit to go there to work during the summers.